Already a winner at last fall's New Orleans Film Festival, "Home" last week was named the best short documentary at New York's prestigious Tribeca Film Festival. (See embedded video below.)

The award, which comes with $5,000 in prize money and the art award "Ring Image," created by Robert Mangold, caps off a big week for Faust, a former Chalmette resident who now lives in Baton Rouge. Exactly one week before the banquet, his wife gave birth to the couple's first child, a girl named Violet.

"It was pretty incredible," Faust said. "I walked up there really, really slow, actually, because I didn't have any sleep the night before. We were up the whole night deciding whether to bring the new baby with us."

Filmmaker Matt Faust, left, pauses at the Tribeca Film Festival for a photo with actor/festival founder Robert DeNiro.

They eventually decided to leave Violet at home, but his flight to New York -- to say nothing of the preceding week of new-parenthood -- left him little time for sleep. "I pretty much got to the awards ceremony hours after landing there," he said. "When I went up (to the podium), my wife heard somebody say, 'Why's he walking so slow?'¤"

"Home," which makes heavy use of computer-assisted photo manipulation, juxtaposes images taken throughout Faust's childhood with similar shots taken after Hurricane Katrina to build a touching portrait of all that was lost in the storm.

In announcing last week's award, the five-person Tribeca shorts jury -- which included MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow -- wrote, "This touching short artistically combines the aesthetic and the emotional in its portrayal of home and its memories. It tells a post-Hurricane Katrina story in a new, inventive and poignant way."

Faust, who works for the LSU Ag Center and has no formal filmmaking background, said "Home" was a passion project for him -- a way to help mourn all that was lost in the storm -- and that he has no concrete plans for future projects. Connections he made at Tribeca could bring some film work, however, as well as a potential distribution deal for "Home," he said.